I'm certain each of those soldiers was investigated and tried by court martial for violating the Iraqi equivalent of the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions/UN Declaration of Human rights, whichever applies.

I'm certain Amnesty International was all over this and that there were millions marching to protest this abuse of human rights.

Finally, I can remember Eason Jordan of CNN reporting breathlessly on this for several weeks.

I do recall seeing similar footage on Fox News months ago. Mostly quick clips. Seeing footage like this always makes me wonder what is going through the mind of the aggressor. How do they choose their victim from the crowd? How do they choose where to deliver the body blows? This morning during my first cup of coffee a news brief flashed by describing some parents that sick their 90lb rottweiller on the kids for punishment. Apparently the neighbor saw them due it and turned them into the authorities. After investigation they discovered multiple puncture wounds cover the bodies of both kids. Many were old wounds. Today has bothered me. I'm afraid of how I would act if I were present during either one of these issues. Does kicking the crap out of the guards or parents help anything besides momentary vengeance? I've been beatup during street fights waiting for the Calvary to arrive. What a miserable position.
Michael I also grew up in Salem (Keizer) during the 80's and came to Portland as soon as I could afford too. I choose PSU over UofO. Many of my friends went to UofO, I always hate going down to see them but they are my friends. Most eventually came to Portland looking for jobs. I have been a registered Democrat since turning 18 but recently changed to Independent. I didn't vote for Bush but in hindsight I would have. I studied environmental sciences through the 90s hoping to save the salmon and spotted owl. During this time I gradually discovered the truth about the of the movement. It's not about preservation or conservation it's about controlling the land and the power that goes with it. The hypocrisy eventually turned me away and I have become a moderate conservative ever since. I discovered your site through TCS several month ago and have made a habit of dropping by. In a weird way I feel like I know you because of my Salem experience.
Keep up the good work.
Cliff Bugge

Why did I post this link? Honestly, I just felt like I should for reasons that are still a bit vague. I guess it's because even though everyone knows Saddam's regime was vile it hasn't quite sunk in for some people beyond the level of an abstraction.

I heard of abuses in prisons but wasn't actually shocked until I saw pictures. It's harder to sweep bad things under the mental rug when you've seen images instead of just read about them.

You know, Michael, I've got a lot of respect for you even though I don't agree with all of your views, but I'm afraid I have to call you out on this post--and if I'm wrong about what was going on in your head, feel free to tell me so.

Saddam's regime was vile? The people who haven't gotten that yet are either apologists or completely uninformed--the former aren't going to get it, and the latter are unlikely to be readers of your blog.

Honestly, the first impression I got off this post was "look! See! Really, we /really/ aren't as bad as Saddam was, despite Abu Ghraib! Really! And here's proof!"

You know that. I know that. Any sane individual knows that. But as was said upthread:

I prefer holding our troops to our standards not those of the Baath party

The American occupation is, by many orders of magnitude, less brutal than Saddam's regime. Nobody worth taking seriously is suggesting otherwise. But that's not exactly a high bar to set for our behavior.

It's also really, really bland compared to the sorts of things some US client states have done over the years, like in East Timor, Honduras, El Salvador, Chile, etc.

I'm sure many North Koreans would give their left arm to be tortured by Saddam's regime, considering it a pleasant vacation from the 8th circle of hell. (Sometimes I wonder if nuking NK wouldn't be a profound humanitarian gesture. Man, are things bad there.)

Special mention should go to new US ally Uzbekistan, whose leader Karimov isn't called "the boiler" for his skill in the kitchen.

I should also point out the little issue of "outsourcing", where the US send "terror suspects" to some of the above countries for "interrogation" that wouldn't be considered "proper" here.

It's always easy to point at the evils of others and feel morally superior. Is this useful? The prison "torture" scandal is just putting in public view stuff that's been going on for a long, long time, by a wide variety of actors.

Of course, deep down, US citizens don't care about Allied forces engaged in atrocities, as long as they don't have to see or hear about them. If some minimal financial or political advantage can be gained by torture, it's fine, as long as no Americans are hurt.

Hmm, stuff in brackets seems to have gotten clipped. Please consider the last paragraph to be from a more cynical frame of reference than the rest. I should have probably used "the vast majority of Americans" rather than "Americans", given the (slight) chance that non-tribal humanist Americans are reading.

It is my understanding that cannibalism became widespread in NK several years ago. Something about relatives needing to guard the bodies of the dead for four days, because at three days some of the starving people might still go for it. No, NK really is a new level of Bad, far beyond even Saddam's profound brutality. Hard to imagine from our little bubble of sanity and stability, but true.

As for Team US unpleasantness, we should recall that the Australian journalists covering the original Timor invasion suffocated on their own genitals. (this was apparently not unusual in that part of the world.) Nobody cared, because 1. there were no pictures and 2. the crimes were committed by a US client state.

I'll be far less cynical about US commitment to stopping torture and mass murder when the USG stops funding it. Similarly, I'll stop laughing when I hear about the War on Terrorism when the USG stops funding the Egyptian State Press. (I'll take the war on drugs seriously when the government can keep drugs out of prisons, and homeland security seriously when customs starts noticing uranium being shipped into the country.)

Of course North Korea is a hellhole, but mass starvation and cannibalism is common in the history of socialism.

I also think it is absurd for you to call every dictator that we allied with in order to win the cold war a "client state". Unless you would call the Soviet Union a "client state" of the US during WWII.

The war on drugs has always been an absurdity. And Homeland security is a fool's errand -- you have to kill the terrorists and destroy their sponsors before they make it here or you've already lost.

spc67,
"I'm certain each of those soldiers was investigated and tried by court martial for violating the Iraqi equivalent of the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions/UN Declaration of Human rights, whichever applies."

Are the people in that video currently in US custody? It's kind of hard to have a trial without a suspect who's been arrested. Wait till we catch those responsible, then ask about whether or not they recieved the same treatment as the reservists at Abu Ghirab.

Of course, deep down, US citizens don't care about Allied forces engaged in atrocities, as long as they don't have to see or hear about them. If some minimal financial or political advantage can be gained by torture, it's fine, as long as no Americans are hurt.

Wow, TJ Madison...you have telepathic super-powers. You can look deep down and see what AMericans really think. I mean, just because lots of Americans (including in the media are condemning this, or discussing how to stop it, or what it means...hey, that's all meaningless! T.J. Madison knows what Americans really think deep down!

Since you have these powers, T.J. Madison, please tell me, because I'm curious:
(1) Did Americans really want Ruben to win American Idol over Clay?
(2) Would Americans prefer a single-payer health care system like Canada, or are they deep down really happy with the current for-profit insurance system?
(3) What is the favorite color of Americans?
(4) Deep down...I mean really deep down.....do Americans just want someone they find attractive, or do they want stability in a relationship?
(5) Do Americans (deep down, of course) think that a stable, Shia-tilted theological based Iraqi government is preferable to a loose Kurdish-Sunni-Shia secularist confederation with more tenuous control over the country?
(6) Do Americans think that orange is the new black?

I guess it's because even though everyone knows Saddam's regime was vile it hasn't quite sunk in for some people beyond the level of an abstraction.

{Kidding} Well as someone who does numerical modeling for a living I resent that ;-P (so what if when we go into the restaurant we eat the menu. At least we only have to eat two brussel sprouts at most to know if its round, green and an inch-or-so in diameter to steer away from it. Meanwhile empiricists like you keep doing experiment after experiment to see if you can cook 'em properly). {/Kidding}

Seriouisly though. If you're a concrete thinker and you already know the Baathists were evil, I don't think you need to see it. If your "abstractions" are grounded in reality like me and already "get it," you don't really have to see the video to get it. (Besides I'm an easy-queasy). If they are "grounded" in preconcieved dogmatic fantasies (i.e., the BushHitler-Lied crowd), I'm not sure that any concretization, statistics or video of what Saddam did, what Kim Jong Il 2.0 is still doing, etc. is going to do any good. That sort of shock therapy is only for middle of the roaders who can be reached with facts and I imagine their roll is getting shorter and shorter.

Catsy: Honestly, the first impression I got off this post was "look! See! Really, we /really/ aren't as bad as Saddam was, despite Abu Ghraib! Really! And here's proof!"

Sure, that's part of it, too.

Honestly, though, I didn't have a specific concrete reason for linking it. It just felt like it was something I needed to do. Hence the lack of commentary about it. It's just something that needs to be out there, and I doubt CNN is going to play it. (Though maybe they have, I really don't know.)

So, Roger, would it be fair to assume from your refusal to explain what you meant that it was just a trollish attempt to create by implication a smear that you know would look foolish and ugly if you tried to make it express?

Mork, you need to see those images for the same reason as you need to see the Abu Gharib abuse. Because things like this need to stop and people need to stop taking a "what's in it for us" attitude when considering how to bring these things to an end. Saddam's gone, but this was the reason a lot of us wanted to see him go.

I'm willing to bet that Roger hasn't been back to this thread at all, likely because he has his own busy blog and hardly comments outside of it. You're just trying to score a point in his absense.

I may be overinterpreting, but I hope you aren't implying that we don't and aren't holding our troops to a higher standard.

To the right's credit, the vast majority are responding in exactly the way they should--with unqualified horror and a determination to ensure it never happens in our name again.

But when prominent US Senators, Rush Limbaugh, and a fair amount of the hawkish right in this country try to minimize what happened at Abu Ghraib or even defend it by claiming that it wasn't as bad as Saddam, then no--I do not think we are holding our troops to a higher standard. If you get drunk and kill someone with your car, the judge isn't going to care if you say "at least I wasn't doing coke too!"

The torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib was beneath the dignity and standards of any civilized country. Understanding that does not require qualification, or a false sense of perspective. Pointing out that "we're not as bad as Saddam" is an attempt at minimization--and an unworthy, unnecessary one. That we're not as bad as Saddam is patently obvious. It's also completely beside the point.

Catsy, you need to get your head out of the sand and talk to Ted Kennedy:

"Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management."

His statement is clear. We ARE as bad as Saddam.

The reason Michael was right in linking to this video is that there is no "but" in the statement, "Of course Iraq is better off without Saddam, BUT....."Posted by: TomB at May 30, 2004 05:43 AM

Roger is a personal friend of mine. I've been to his house and I know his family. He is not a troll, especially not on this blog.

Well, what on earth was he (and you, for that matter) attempting to do other than to demonize and discredit critics of the Administration's performance by implying that they are either ignorant people because they are not aware of the nature of Saddam's regime, or are immoral people because they are indifferent to it?

If Roger wants to have a go at me along those lines, then I feel entitled to call him on it. And if leaving a personal insult on a thread and then clearing out without explaining or defending it not trollish behavior, then I'm not sure what is. You can see the effect that it has had on the rest of the thread.

I don't know how anyone who can look at those pictures of eyeballs being slit and the video and not want to intervene and overthrow the regime that does this to huge numbers of its people.

And, yes, I hope someone knocks over Sudan, N. Korea and the Iranian governmnent soon. I realize we can't take on all these tasks ourselves. But the moral question -- it's answered for me as soon as I look at the pictures, watch the video, and know about the mass graves. I must be a naif -- because most of the people I work with don't agree. To some of them, Arabs are subhuman, incapable of living in a capitalist democracy, and deserving of the likes of Saddam. Others are just convinced that the US + Bechtel, Exxon, and Haliburton are as evil as Saddam's regime. Me, I suppose I'm just a hopeless polyanna -- I would like to see interventions in the broken parts of the world, and bring them into the functioning parts of the world community. I suppose it was too much exposure to "Diary of Anne Frank" and "Never Again" in my hyper-liberal Quaker school childhood. But I want to see the sphere of civilization spread, and the sphere of tyranny shrink away and disappear. And the battle of Iraq has always been about that for me -- yes we are doing it to make ourselves safer, but this is really about establishing liberty in the Arab world so they will choose pilot passenger jets full of tourists and businessmen into Baghdad, Teheran, and Damascas instead of the North Tower, South Tower, and the Pentagon.

The photos of Abu Ghraib abuse had a far stronger impact on me than merely reading about it. I think that's normal, and there's no reason to believe the same wouldn't apply to pictures of what Saddam did.

I can't say what Roger meant with his comment. But maybe you need to see the images for the same reason I needed to see the Abu Ghraib photos. It doesn't mean you're immoral or a bad person.

I posted Abu Ghraib photos and took a lot of flack from the right. I don't need flack from the left for publishing imagery of Saddam's brutality.

>>Wow, TJ Madison...you have telepathic super-powers. You can look deep down and see what AMericans really think. I mean, just because lots of Americans (including in the media are condemning this, or discussing how to stop it, or what it means...hey, that's all meaningless! T.J. Madison knows what Americans really think deep down!

I can tell how the bulk of Americans think by watching what they DO instead of what they SAY. And what they DO is sit back and yawn when Lt. Calley gets pardoned. What they DO is let people like Cheney and Rumsfeld, who had command authority over the Timor massacre, get power. What they DO is watch monsters like Kissinger and Zbigniew talk on TV without vomiting. What they DO is mobilize the Greatest War Machine Ever when 3000 US citizens get killed, but they can't be bothered to learn about, much less take any action to stop, incidents when 10x or 100x as many people are killed.

This is especially true when the USG is doing the killing, or paying others to have it done (which is the same thing.)

The Turks killed 30,000 Kurds from 1990-2000. You helped pay for the "counterinsurgency" equipment needed to level hundreds of villages, imprison dissidents, etc. But it's not news, and it's not important, because they aren't Americans.

Etc. Etc. ETC.

What's likely to happen in the current scandal is the few low-level peons will be sacrificed, the Army will close ranks, and the Really Important Torture of the "known terrorists" will continue, either with greater secrecy, or by outsourcing the torture to Israel, Turkey, Syria (yes, Syria), Egypt, etc.

Well. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe some Americans (like myself, for instance) change the channel when Kissinger comes on the TV? That maybe some Americans (like myself, for instance) are well-aware of the fact that supporting Indonesian jihad did nothing to help bring down the Berlin Wall?

Or are you just going to keep sneering on my blog as though I and everyone else are cartoon caricatures of right-wing death beasts?

What they DO is let people like Cheney and Rumsfeld, who had command authority over the Timor massacre, get power

Could you explain to me how either one of these folks were in the chain of command for this? Thanks.

Getting back to

What they DO is mobilize the Greatest War Machine Ever when 3000 US citizens get killed, but they can't be bothered to learn about, much less take any action to stop, incidents when 10x or 100x as many people are killed.

So, I would infer from your post, that when things like North Korean atrocities, or Rwandan genocide happen, we should get involved earlier militarily? We should have gone to Baghdad in 1991, despite the fact that we had no mandate and no legal reason to go? I'm not being snippy here, I'm trying to find out what you actually mean before you get too deeply into the polemics

This is especially true when the USG is doing the killing, or paying others to have it done (which is the same thing.)

That statement conflates so many things as to be functionally useless. For an easy starting bit, how about this one: the US gives economic development aid to a country. The aid is used to pay for a contract that is carried out by someone with close ties to the regime. In exchange for being granted the contract, the businessman funnels some cash to the election campaign, which, in turn, provides it to a local governor for local political efforts. The particular provence in question is unstable, so the governor hires some guards for the local party headquarters. The thugs and heavies he ends up recruiting are not, sadly, Morman missionaries, but rather thugs and drunkards. These thugs and drunkard note that one of the people who is always at the protest line throwing rocks at the building seems to be a ringleader. Siezing the initative, they ambush they guy one night as he's leaving a bar and beat the holy living hell out of him to send him a warning (but without murderous intent). Unfortunately, not being particularly skilled at this art, the troublemaker dies as a result of injuries.

Far as you seem to be concerned there is no difference between that, and President Bush flying on down on Air Force One and putting a bullet between the eyes of that same rabblerouser.

Since it is pretty ridiculous to equate these two acts, I would ask that you clarify your statement a bit so I may understand what you're getting at.

The Turks killed 30,000 Kurds from 1990-2000. You helped pay for the "counterinsurgency" equipment needed to level hundreds of villages, imprison dissidents, etc. But it's not news, and it's not important, because they aren't Americans.

Just like the US establishing the no-fly zones to stop the Kurds in Northern Iraq from getting killed. Oops - sorry, that was a case in which the US prevented ethnic cleansing. Let me think here...

Hmmm... Somalia? Yep, we only invaded because of the large Somali restauranteer community in Washington DC (who have no electoral college votes).

Then there was that whole stretch during the ninties in which we did nothing like providing peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. And the times that we weren't bombing Serbia to prevent the slaughter of Kosovars.

Those incidences also remind me of the time when the US went into Haiti to stop unrest that was tearing the country apart. I can't seem to remember what year that was. 1994? 2004? Oh, that's right, both both 1994 and 2004.

Then there was that bit in Liberia.

But maybe you don't mean solely military intervention. Like the mid-80s campaigns to raise money for the Ethiopian famine. Or the folks who are zipping off to Uganda to build houses for locals, or the churches that sponsor the immigration of foreign families to the US.

You know, stuff like that.

Dagnabit! Sorry about the above paragraphs, I had forgotten that the US has never lifted a finger ever, ever, ever, for anything but an American. Silly me, I keep forgetting how unspeakably evil we are. Just as evil as those people in the video linked up top. Or something.

What's likely to happen in the current scandal is the few low-level peons will be sacrificed, the Army will close ranks, and the Really Important Torture of the "known terrorists" will continue, either with greater secrecy, or by outsourcing the torture to Israel, Turkey, Syria (yes, Syria), Egypt, etc.

Lord knows, since we are so evil and all (and full of dissent-stifling progroms and gulags and secret police interrogations, etc.) there's absolutely no way that there could be a small number of sadistic fools who are involved in the scandal. Yep. It's gotta go all the way to the top. Just like those folks in 1968 who were protesting the Vietnam War and hoisting the big Mao placards were taking orders directly from the Chinese Politburo. You betcha.

And given the clarity of your analysis thus far, I am aboslutely confident that countries like Turkey, who wouldn't let us stage the 4th Infantry Division prior to the war, are just falling all over themselves for their American masters. Or Syria, who just landed themselves a blanket embargo by the US - yep, we work with them hand in glove.

Yep, a whole world of people who do just what their evil overlords tell them to do. You know, that's why countries like Syria, France, and Russia voted for UN 1441, but were opposed to actual use of force. That way the US could set itself up to pay a much higher diplomatic price than necessary. Most people wouldn't be so astute as to recognize the admant opposition to the invasion of Iraq coming out of the Arab League as being, of course, orchestrated by nefarious neocon machinations.

I posted Abu Ghraib photos and took a lot of flack from the right. I don't need flack from the left for publishing imagery of Saddam's brutality.

I was not for a second criticizing you for linking to this material. I'm from the "put it all on the table and let the chips fall where they may" school.

I was only ever questioning your "some people need to see this" comment. If it wasn't an attempt to suggest that people who oppose the Administration's policy do so because they don't know or don't care about the nature of Saddam's regime, then I still don't know what you meant.

(Not, BTW, that I'm actually from the left ... I'm definitely not on economic policy, and on foreign policy, what I have learned in the last 18 months has, if anything, pushed me towards old-style conservative realism. You can't have it both ways, Michael - if this is, as you claim, a liberal war, and I am a person who rejects the premise on which it was fought, then .... ?)

>>Could you explain to me how either one of these folks were in the chain of command for this? Thanks.

Most certainly. The invasion of East Timor was authorized by Kissinger and Ford the week before it occured. We know this because we have the declassified transcripts of their meeting with Suharto. The US paid for the vast majority of the weapons, logistics, and training for the invasion and the ensuing "counterinsurgency".

Rumsfeld was SecDef and Cheney was Chief of Staff during the immediate aftermath of the invasion. They surely had to rubber-stamp the weapons shipments and especially the CI training. Either they were incompetent or complicit. As the atrocities worsened, US military aid to Indonesia increased. Remember, this is foreign military aid to a dictator who had already murdered a million of his own people. (Our CIA had handed his generals lists of thousands of people to murder.)

What galled me the most was when Rumsfeld recently gave a speech in which he complained about the UN's inept administration of East Timor. Now, I'm certain the UN is inept, but the previous administators, who he had helped install, had KILLED ONE THIRD OF THE POPULATION. Imagine the arrogance or insanity needed to do that with a straight face!

>>Just like the US establishing the no-fly zones to stop the Kurds in Northern Iraq from getting killed. Oops - sorry, that was a case in which the US prevented ethnic cleansing. Let me think here...

Well, sort of. Problem was, the "no-fly" zones got turned off when the Turks were flying bombing missions against Kurds in Northern Iraq. This had interesting effects on pilot morale, if I remember correctly.

To be fair, some of the pilots who first observed Saddam's attacks on the Kurds were decent people who managed to make enough noise to get the no-fly zones deployed. AFAIK, it was a very strange "grass roots" military operation. Wolfowitz was involved in that situation, which is why I consider him to be a decent man, if somewhat misguided -- one of the few I can be sure of in the current administration.

>>So, I would infer from your post, that when things like North Korean atrocities, or Rwandan genocide happen, we should get involved earlier militarily? We should have gone to Baghdad in 1991, despite the fact that we had no mandate and no legal reason to go?

If we could trust that the USG was serious about advancing liberty, yes. I've never been particularly impressed by international law arguments, given the diseased nature of the UN. Besides, stuff like "the law" hasn't stopped powerful people before, why should it suddenly matter now when it's time to save thousands of people from death?

It's hard to take the USG seriously though, given the USG's ongoing support for people like Karimov, and its past record. This same record makes claims by the USG that it's going into Iraq or any other place to "liberate" the people seem like a sick joke.

>>Silly me, I keep forgetting how unspeakably evil we are. Just as evil as those people in the video linked up top. Or something.

The US consists, on average, of people who are somewhat less evil than the people in the videos. The average US citizen probably wouldn't torture anyone to death unless asked to by an authority figure. Milgram's figures were 65% percent, but later estimates have been higher, since people who volunteer for psychology experiments have more initiative and individual will than the general population. Probably only about 3-4% of the population are sadists who would actually enjoy torture-murdering others.

That leaves somewhere between 10-20% who would refuse to torture people they knew to be innocent, even if they were asked to. Maybe some of those people are serious about cleaning up the mess. That would explain some of the more benevolent, if usually misguided, humanitarian missions.

We are indeed blessed with an institutional structure that is marginally less evil than most of the rest of the governments. This is counterbalanced by the fact that the USG is immensely more powerful -- a little malice goes a long way, and a little screwup can quickly lead to Ye Liveliest Awfulness.

>>And given the clarity of your analysis thus far, I am aboslutely confident that countries like Turkey, who wouldn't let us stage the 4th Infantry Division prior to the war, are just falling all over themselves for their American masters.

Turkey is interesting in that the military has been completely and totally bought, yet the Turkish civil authority wasn't, which could have (and may well still) lead to a civil war. Since Turkey is more indebted than Argentina, the USG may indeed make Turkey pay dearly for its insolence. We shall see.

>>Or Syria, who just landed themselves a blanket embargo by the US - yep, we work with them hand in glove.

In the past several years we have sent people to Syria to be tortured. Yes, putting an embargo on a country that helps the USG torture people is nuts. No, I am not surprised.

>>Lord knows, since we are so evil and all (and full of dissent-stifling progroms and gulags and secret police interrogations, etc.)

Patience. These things have happened here before, and they will again. Give it time.

>>there's absolutely no way that there could be a small number of sadistic fools who are involved in the scandal.

The bozos involved in this particular scandal are likely just that -- bozos. Their superiors were likely just incompetent morons. The real torture goes on elsewhere, likely by more competent interrogators, or is outsourced.

>>Most people wouldn't be so astute as to recognize the admant opposition to the invasion of Iraq coming out of the Arab League as being, of course, orchestrated by nefarious neocon machinations.

Look, the USG wanted to invade Iraq, for reasons largely disconnected with decency and righteousness. France, Germany, and Russia were opposed to the invasion out of naked greed and powerlust. For the right price, the cooperation of the above countries could have been purchased. Their assistance (or lack of resistance) wasn't deemed important enough to pay the price they were asking -- a decision I incidently agree with.

I don't believe ANY of the governments involved give a damn about the people of Iraq, no matter what their propaganda says.

>>Well. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe some Americans (like myself, for instance) change the channel when Kissinger comes on the TV?

It is always a pleasure to find someone else who doesn't buy into the usual bullshit of these murderous scum.

>>That maybe some Americans (like myself, for instance) are well-aware of the fact that supporting Indonesian jihad did nothing to help bring down the Berlin Wall?

"Some Americans" is probably very optimistic. If more than two people partcipating on this blog were aware of this particular scam, than this group is most unusual.

>>Or are you just going to keep sneering on my blog as though I and everyone else are cartoon caricatures of right-wing death beasts?

Since you seem to be one of the few who are likely to hold all humans to a consistent standard of behavior, none of my comments about the depravity and general tribal rottenness of the US (and the rest of the planet) apply to you.

This said, any plans for cutting back on the amount of torture and mass murder that go on need to take into account certain very unpleasant facts about average human (and therefore average American) behavior. I guess this is the point of the above ranting. (Maybe I could have made it shorter, my apologies if this is taking up too much space.)

This said, any plans for cutting back on the amount of torture and mass murder that go on need to take into account certain very unpleasant facts about average human (and therefore average American) behavior.

Let's just say that this is the point where you and probably everyone else here agrees, so let's build off of that and you can stuff the rest of your self-righteous crap.

We can all agree that those acts were definately sadistic & prove that the Ba'ath régime deserved to be dismantled.

The sad thing is that the U.S. supports acts like this year after year. They were selling Saddam Hussein weapons throughout the 80's and this wasn't to punish him for his torture of his political opponents. (I suppose that they were choosing from the lesser of two evils, Iran being their former enemy and Iraq being their ally?)

The easy way to prevent things like this from recurring in the future is to stop selling weapons and products to nations that torture their citizens. (That would severely hamper Israel's ability to "protect itself". Ask Amnesty International about their torture methods. Genital electrocution, anyone?)

My point is that although this video is both horrifying and deplorable, the U.S. allows it to occur in many countries as long as they keep the oil wells pumping and they don't try to become socialist.

For example, Saudi Arabia tortures people too. You don't see us invading them to provide them with USA-Brand Freedom ™. If we're so concerned with the sanctity of human life, why are US bombs the best in the world? (They're smart, too!)

To the best of my knowledge the events I've described actually occured. If I'm mistaken about the factual nature of the events, that makes me ignorant, foolish, or stupid, not self-righteous.

Those people are dead, and I helped pay for it. Knowing about this doesn't make me feel proud -- it makes me feel dirty and sick. Every year I sign my tax return I give more money to these wicked and stupid people. How does that make me righteous?

I can't even claim that I wouldn't be one of the torturers and murderers if put in the correct circumstances. Maybe being aware of all this stuff might help me, but how can I know for sure?

Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.

I agree that sometimes it is necessary to ally with some unsavory characters in order to defeat the greater of two evils.

Still, the US too often sides with the status quo, be it an oppressive gov't (like Saudi Arabia) or an important regional player (like Pakistan), overlooking any human rights violations or whether this will truly bring peace and democracy to a region.

I was ok with the Clinton admin's policy of containment & multinational invasions with UN sanction but I can't agree with the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes. This will only breed more hatred and make life more difficult for Pro-American voices in oppressed countries.

My apologies for posting two consecutive comments but I realize that Mr. Totten didn't respond to some of my points. The US is the largest exporter of arms in the world. If your gov't decided to halt all shipments of bombs and rifles, don't you think there might be more peace in the world?

Also, do you think that by building up your military year after year, this is going to instill love and respect in the hearts of every other country for your glorious power? One thing I've learned during my short stay on this globe is that people are proud and they always try to take down whoever's on top. By climbing to the top of the hill and constantly reminding us all that your president is the "Leader of the Free World", you're just inviting attention.

Try to keep a lower profile. Maybe elect somebody of a peaceful nature, ie. a Kucinich, a doe-eyed lamb that will make you look weak. This will discourage attacks. (I call this the Canadian Approach)

It might help if every American was taught the Tao-Teh Ching by Lao-Tzu at a very young age. Observe:

78. SINCERITY
There is nothing more yielding than water,
yet when acting on the solid and strong,
its gentleness and fluidity
have no equal in any thing.
The weak can overcome the strong,
and the supple overcome the hard.
Although this is known far and wide,
few put it into practice in their lives.
Although seemingly paradoxical,
the person who takes upon himself,
the people's humiliation,
is fit to rule;
and he is fit to lead,
who takes the country's disasters upon himself.

"The US is the largest exporter of arms in the world. If your gov't decided to halt all shipments of bombs and rifles, don't you think there might be more peace in the world?"

This is confusing correlation with causation. It also shows a complete disregard for market economics. Furthermore, that also glazes over the difference between small arms transfers and major weapons systems. Additionally, it completely glosses over the distinction between indigenous manufacture and importation - for example, do you think the South African company ARMSCOR would have been producing the artillery systems or Rooivalk had there not been an arms embargo?

Also, do you think that by building up your military year after year, this is going to instill love and respect in the hearts of every other country for your glorious power?

Are you aware that defense spending in the US as a percentage of GNP has declined by more than half since the mid-80's? I am also desperately curious to learn how we would manage to do things like the Kosovo war or the Haitian stabilizations without an overage of military capability? I would also be desperately curious to see how organizations like NATO or countries like Saudi Arabia would be doing if they couldn't rely on American force of arms to prevent war. This notion of deterrence through weakness that you seem to imply is fascinating.

Try to keep a lower profile. Maybe elect somebody of a peaceful nature, ie. a Kucinich, a doe-eyed lamb that will make you look weak. This will discourage attacks. (I call this the Canadian Approach)

Peaceful nature? They won't want to attack then? Look weak to deter? Try to avoid getting mugged that way. Have you been channeling Chamberlain? Have you not been paying attention to the last 10 or so millennia of human history? That Stalin guy - perfectly nice so long as you don't attract his ire by doing anything untoward like owning something. Pol Pot, great, once you get to know him. And that Idi Amin fellow, great party guy - loves to throw barbeques.

The only reason this "Canadian Approach" works is because Canada possesses a doomsday weapon - a telephone to call the US should they ever get their butts in a tight spot. Anyone who attacks Canada gets the same family of repercussions they would get for attacking the US, but would only get Canada for their troubles. The difference between Canada and the US is the willingness to provide for their own defense rather than being able to rely on a bigger brother to pick up the slack.

They surely had to rubber-stamp the weapons shipments and especially the CI training.

Maybe, maybe not, depending on how the operation was handled administratively - e.g. if it were CIA then neither the SecDef or Chief of Staff would be in the loop for that. But that is essentially an organizational quibble not central to your main thesis. But at any rate, what was the historical context to this? We had just lost in Vietnam and couldn't afford to allow another conflict to metatastize into a future Vietnam (or this was the thinking at the time). We also pulled a set of shenanigans in Angola with the South Africans for similar reasons. The other thing to keep in mind about Indonesia specifically is the threat of Kalishnikov federalism. The secession of East Timor has given the movements in Aceh a big shot in the arm. And more seriously, if you were Grand Poobah of Indonesia, how would you keep Aceh or East Timor in the fold (and I'm excluding the idea that you could just wish you hadn't ended up taking over East Timor in the first place)?

But, getting down to brass tacks, is that shipping someone weapons is not the same as pulling the trigger. More importantly, involvement is most emphatically not the same as being in the chain of command. Just because the KGB gave the IRA money and the IRA bombed people in London is not the same as Soviet planes launching cruise missiles into Trafalgar Square.

What galled me the most was when Rumsfeld recently gave a speech in which he complained about the UN's inept administration of East Timor. Now, I'm certain the UN is inept, but the previous administators, who he had helped install, had KILLED ONE THIRD OF THE POPULATION. Imagine the arrogance or insanity needed to do that with a straight face!

This essentially goes back to the points above (and in my earlier post) about the difference between being involved through X-many degrees of separation and doing the deed yourself. Furthermore, as you note, regardless of the fact that it was Rumsfeld who said it doesn't make it untrue. I wouldn't think that saying something true about the UN's adminstration of East Timor would require either insanity or arrogance. But that may just be me.

Well, sort of. Problem was, the "no-fly" zones got turned off when the Turks were flying bombing missions against Kurds in Northern Iraq. This had interesting effects on pilot morale, if I remember correctly.</I.

Could you provide a link for the Turkish bomibing of positions following the establishment of the no-fly zones? That episode seems to have skipped my memory.

But at the end of the day, you can't call any use of force against an ethnic group cleansing (you didn't do that explicitly, but I used the term ethnic cleansing in my original statement, and you replied "Well, sort of." implying that it was sort of ethnic cleansing. Much like the sort of pregnant thing.

To be fair, some of the pilots who first observed Saddam's attacks on the Kurds were decent people who managed to make enough noise to get the no-fly zones deployed. AFAIK, it was a very strange "grass roots" military operation. Wolfowitz was involved in that situation, which is why I consider him to be a decent man, if somewhat misguided -- one of the few I can be sure of in the current administration.,/i>

Some of the pilots were decent enough people - how very charitable of you. :)

I don't recall that set of events unfolding in exactly that fashion, and would be grateful if you could provide some links.

I am compelled, at this point, to note that however much we may disagree on specifics, your opinion of Wolfowitz as noted above indicates that you're not necessarily simply being reflexive in your criticism of current policies. I respect that.

If we could trust that the USG was serious about advancing liberty, yes.

I argue that the military humanitarian interventions during the nineties demonstrate that on occasion, the US actually does intervene for solely benevolent reasons. Face it, there's just no percentage in something like Kosovo or Somalia or Bosnia for the US.

I've never been particularly impressed by international law arguments, given the diseased nature of the UN. Besides, stuff like "the law" hasn't stopped powerful people before, why should it suddenly matter now when it's time to save thousands of people from death?

I am with you on the efficacy of international law. I just have similar views about international law even as an abstract theoretical concept, let alone in execution. But this gets off the main point. If you get into the wayback machine, the reason that we didn't go north in 1991 was the same, virtually verbatim, reasons given by anti-war folks not to get into Iraq this go around. When it gets down to it, we played by the multilateralist rulebook in 1991, then caught hell because it didn't work, and then caught hell again when we actually tried to do something to fix the problem. Very much of a Catch-22.

It's hard to take the USG seriously though, given the USG's ongoing support for people like Karimov, and its past record. This same record makes claims by the USG that it's going into Iraq or any other place to "liberate" the people seem like a sick joke.

This statement presupposes that decision-making is monocausal, monolithic, and unchanging. Which it ain't. As a for instance, the US caught hell for being "unilateral" in Iraq, but is catching hell for refusing to act unilaterally with North Korea. That, if nothing else, shows that not only does the US act differently from case to case, the rest of the world does as well. So to argue that US cooperation with Karimov is, by default, bad, and therefore invalidates the deployment of troops to Somalia is just not reasonable.

You are also mute on the reasons that the US has chosen to cooperate with Karimov on some level. Nor do you provide any insight into how the US could pursue its policy objectives at minimum cost in Uzbekistan without working with existing structures.

Good on you. I agree wholeheartedly that just because the US can't solve all the problems that we shouldn't solve any of them. If there were a "Whack Evil Dictators" place on my taxes to pitch in a couple extra bucks, I'd be more than happy to do so. Hell, I'd even sell candy bars door to door for it.

The US consists, on average, of people who are somewhat less evil than the people in the videos.

You're just overflowing with charity today. :)

The average US citizen probably wouldn't torture anyone to death unless asked to by an authority figure. Milgram's figures were 65% percent...

I don't recall if Milgram's figures were for the number of people who would actually torture "to death" or just continue torture. I have also been extraordinarily interested in learning if additional research has been done supporting the conclusions of that study.

That would explain some of the more benevolent, if usually misguided, humanitarian missions.

That's a big ole leap of logic there that really, really needs further explanation. You appear to be arguing that someone who would continue to torture if pressured by an authority figure would also not donate money to a humanitarian cause. That doesn't automatically follow.

We are indeed blessed with an institutional structure that is marginally less evil than most of the rest of the governments. This is counterbalanced by the fact that the USG is immensely more powerful -- a little malice goes a long way, and a little screwup can quickly lead to Ye Liveliest Awfulness.

Marignally less evil? Marginally? I guess we just don't see the same world. Marginally less evil when stacked up against the Cubas and North Koreas of the world doesn't seem to cover it. You also seem to be implying malice (active intent) without providing examples. If you were to argue misgueded, cynical, or excessively pragmatist, we would be on different terms. But active, willing malice would be a charge I would want evidence for.

>>Lord knows, since we are so evil and all (and full of dissent-stifling progroms and gulags and secret police interrogations, etc.)

Patience. These things have happened here before, and they will again. Give it time.

I don't recall on progroms or secret police episodes, although FDR did censor the press.

The real torture goes on elsewhere, likely by more competent interrogators, or is outsourced.

Allegation without evidence is opinion.

Look, the USG wanted to invade Iraq, for reasons largely disconnected with decency and righteousness. France, Germany, and Russia were opposed to the invasion out of naked greed and powerlust. For the right price, the cooperation of the above countries could have been purchased. Their assistance (or lack of resistance) wasn't deemed important enough to pay the price they were asking -- a decision I incidently agree with.

I don't believe ANY of the governments involved give a damn about the people of Iraq, no matter what their propaganda says.

Could there be more than one reason to invade Iraq? Just possibly? Could one of those reasons be humanitarian? Could we do something in enlightened self-interest? Even if unintentionaly, could something good come from a self-interested act? Does the existence of self-interest automatically negate any humanitarian value of an action?

When we're talking about world peace, should market economics even figure in the equation? This is a question of the survival of the human species. We can either trend towards becoming more warlike and more likely to extinguish each other, or more peaceful and more likely to resolve our issues by diplomacy, sanctions, multilateral initiatives, etc. I'm not completely against war but only as a last resort. The U.S. makes a killing (sorry for the pun) from arms sales and a rifle can kill you just as well as a smart bomb.

"Peaceful nature? They won't want to attack then? Look weak to deter? Try to avoid getting mugged that way. Have you been channeling Chamberlain? Have you not been paying attention to the last 10 or so millennia of human history?"

Yes, I've been reading my history books and I've seen that any empire will undoubtedly abuse its power and overreach its boundaries. Then, consequently, it will be overrun and demolished until it is nothing but an echo of its past glories. This happened to the Iraqis already (Babylonia), the English, the Italians, etc. And eventually, the U.S. Empire will also fall. That's why your nation should focus on winning hearts and minds, not selling more weapons or building up your military. There is no way to rule the world completely. You'll never succeed.

(Actually, militarily, the U.S. might be able to conquer the whole world but most countries will resist until it is no longer possible. I know that my fellow Canadians would fight to the death rather than submit to an American master. Complete U.S. Global hegemony wouldn't be easy, but I'm sure Rumsfeld would salivate at the chance to play with his Risk Board.)

When we're talking about world peace, should market economics even figure in the equation? This is a question of the survival of the human species. We can either trend towards becoming more warlike and more likely to extinguish each other, or more peaceful and more likely to resolve our issues by diplomacy, sanctions, multilateral initiatives, etc. I'm not completely against war but only as a last resort. The U.S. makes a killing (sorry for the pun) from arms sales and a rifle can kill you just as well as a smart bomb.

Don't be obtuse. If the US got out of the arms business, do you imagine France, Russia, and China would just say ho-hum, no money to be made here? You also seem to be so anxious to wag a finger that you completely disregard the difference between total value of arms sales and flows of small arms, which are radically different issues, both of which are serious.

If you think that mankind has been trending towards more warlike behavior, then I suggest you revisit your chronologies - for the contrary has been true for more than a century. Similarly, reductions in strategic nuclear stockpiles also run counter to your basic thesis.

Yes, I've been reading my history books and I've seen that any empire will undoubtedly abuse its power and overreach its boundaries. Then, consequently, it will be overrun and demolished until it is nothing but an echo of its past glories. This happened to the Iraqis already (Babylonia), the English, the Italians, etc. And eventually, the U.S. Empire will also fall. That's why your nation should focus on winning hearts and minds, not selling more weapons or building up your military. There is no way to rule the world completely. You'll never succeed.

You amke a braod generalization here without citing any specifics. The other thing is that your argument is based on Paul Kennedy's Imperial Overreach thesis, which has been shown to apply only very poorly. As much as you like to assume all manner of warlike impulses in the US, the numbers simply don't bear this out. As I pointed out in my last post to you, defence expenditures as % of GNP are less than half what they were 20 years ago. Furthermore, since 1991, we've gone from 18 divisions of 4 brigades (a total of 72 brigades) to 10 divisions of 3 brigades. To assert that the US military is growing is to mistake growth for rapid disarmement by nearly everyone else.

I still cannot see anything other than wishful thinking to the basic thesis you submit that by rolling over all the bad guys will turn into happy people and that, contrary to 10,000 years of history, this newly lovable cuddly-worthy US will be adored by one and all. If the US turned into the world's biggest Switzerland we'd still catch hell for being isolationist. No matter what the US does, it will draw flack from some folks.

(Actually, militarily, the U.S. might be able to conquer the whole world but most countries will resist until it is no longer possible. I know that my fellow Canadians would fight to the death rather than submit to an American master. Complete U.S. Global hegemony wouldn't be easy, but I'm sure Rumsfeld would salivate at the chance to play with his Risk Board.)

I don't normally respond to an aside like this, but "fight to the death rather than submit to an American master" is deeply into the histrionics and just not helpful. Moreover, the Rumsfeld risk-board ocmments are much more appropriate to adolescent sniping than to informed commentary.

>>Could you provide a link for the Turkish bomibing of positions following the establishment of the no-fly zones? That episode seems to have skipped my memory.

Certainly.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/2000/1025nfly.htm

Search article for "Turkish Special Mission"

>>But, getting down to brass tacks, is that shipping someone weapons is not the same as pulling the trigger. More importantly, involvement is most emphatically not the same as being in the chain of command.

If the USG had cut military aid when it learned about the atrocities, this would be reasonable. When military aid increases with the atrocities, I'm very suspicious. When the atrocities (and occupation) end immediately upon termination of aid, somebody is complicit in something.

The use of puppets to do one's dirty work is real convenient from a plausible deniabilty standpoint. Sometimes a state gets sloppy, though, and it's possible to figure out what's going on.

>>Just because the KGB gave the IRA money and the IRA bombed people in London is not the same as Soviet planes launching cruise missiles into Trafalgar Square.

Well, other than the amount of ordinance delivered, I'm not too sure of the difference. The Soviets knew the IRA would use the money to blow up British property -- sounds like an act of war to me. We would consider Saddam/Syria/Saudi giving money to OBL an act of war, right? Maybe having 30,000 nuclear weapons allowed the Soviets to get away with this.

>>And more seriously, if you were Grand Poobah of Indonesia, how would you keep Aceh or East Timor in the fold (and I'm excluding the idea that you could just wish you hadn't ended up taking over East Timor in the first place)?

I'd torture-murder anyone in these regions who opposed my domination. "Fear will keep the local systems in line," etc. Terror works, which is why it's used. My disgust with such methods is probably why I don't work on imperial projects, and question their necessity, e.g. why not just let Timor and Aceh leave?

>>This statement presupposes that decision-making is monocausal, monolithic, and unchanging. Which it ain't.

I propose that most decision-making will involve furthering the growth of and advancing the power interests of whatever bureaucracies are involved in the decision. This follows from simple selection pressure and institutional logic arguments. Those bureaucracies which don't operate this way tend not to be around any more.

>>I argue that the military humanitarian interventions during the nineties demonstrate that on occasion, the US actually does intervene for solely benevolent reasons. Face it, there's just no percentage in something like Kosovo or Somalia or Bosnia for the US.

There's no percentage in it for us, the taxpayers. There's plenty of percentage in it for the Pentagon System. All that intervention is expensive -- lots and lots of taxpayer money flowing into the weapons industry. Bureaucracies get bigger. New agencies get formed, and obsolete ones have a new excuse to justify their continued existence.

Here's an excellent example of this sort of institutional logic in action:

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/2004418.asp

Nobody involved in this process gives a rat's ass about the environment, as should be obvious.

Why would the military go along with such a nutty thing? My theory: Morton Thiokol bought off some congressmen. Now Thiokol gets to sell the military all the rocket fuel all over again. Some department in the Pentagon gets more funding to oversee the project.

Everybody gets paid, and everybody wins -- except you.

>>Good on you. I agree wholeheartedly that just because the US can't solve all the problems that we shouldn't solve any of them. If there were a "Whack Evil Dictators" place on my taxes to pitch in a couple extra bucks, I'd be more than happy to do so. Hell, I'd even sell candy bars door to door for it.

We should try and figure out how this could be done. This idea should be considered regardless of one's estimate of the USG's benevolence or competence.

>>If you were to argue misgueded, cynical, or excessively pragmatist, we would be on different terms. But active, willing malice would be a charge I would want evidence for.

Let's take Laos for example. More tonnage of bombs were dropped on Laos than were dropped by all sides in WWII -- and that's including the TNT equivalent of the atomics. We have no idea how many people died because few here care. People are still being killed by UXO over there. I'm sure all the USG officials involved thought they had good reasons to run this operation without informing congress or the public. Were they knowingly malicious? Probably not. Were they evil bastards? Most certainly.

Certainly much of what goes on is just the result of dumbass, buck-passing, etc. Much of what goes on involves "evil" institutions, in which normally decent people act awfully. Often there isn't an "evil leader" in these institutions. Management is as much cogs in the machine as anyone else. None of this makes me respect them any more.

The statement I often make is "The Emperor has No Head."

>>I don't recall if Milgram's figures were for the number of people who would actually torture "to death" or just continue torture.

To death, most certainly.

65% of the "teachers" tortured the "learner" -- a plant who had lost a rigged drawing -- all the way up to "400 Volts - XXX". This was long after the "learner", who it was strongly implied had a heart condition, had stopped responding.

The web summaries of the experiments aren't adequate. I would suggest you get Milgram's actual book Obedience to Authority. Many interesting permutations of the original experiment yielded quite interesting results.

>>I don't recall that set of events unfolding in exactly that fashion, and would be grateful if you could provide some links.

Sadly, I don't have any links describing the creation of the No-Fly Zone. There was a Frontline episode that discussed this topic -- this was where I got my first positive impression of Wolfowitz and learned of the USAF guys who couldn't stand by and just watch Saddam's choppers gun down women and children. Wolfowitz is no John Rabe, but I guess he'll have to do.

>>If you get into the wayback machine, the reason that we didn't go north in 1991 was the same, virtually verbatim, reasons given by anti-war folks not to get into Iraq this go around.

Well, I didn't give those reasons because I'm not an ordinary anti-war activist. "Multilateralism" is usually as bad an idea as the pro-war folks say it is. Whatever bad things I say about the USG, there's no way I could claim that the UN, Arab League, etc. are LESS corrupt/evil. As nasty as US soldiers can be, I'd far rather have them on the job than most the puppet armies of most US puppets. As unaccountable as the Pentagon System is, US "allies" are usually much worse.

>>So to argue that US cooperation with Karimov is, by default, bad, and therefore invalidates the deployment of troops to Somalia is just not reasonable.

US cooperation with Karimov indicates that the elements of the USG involved are either chumps, incompetent, severely misguided, or malicious. Why should I trust such an organization to intervene constuctively in Somalia?

I'm not saying that somebody shouldn't fix Somalia. I'm just saying that we should send in an organization with a track record that would indicate that things wouldn't get worse after the intervention. Right now, I suspect no such organization exists. Perhaps somebody should start one.

>>I don't recall on progroms or secret police episodes, although FDR did censor the press.

The first Red Scare, the Japanese internment, COINTELPRO. Those things weren't pretty. At least COINTELPRO lead to the deployment of Agent Solo, who was an invaluable intelligence asset.

>>>>The real torture goes on elsewhere, likely by more competent interrogators, or is outsourced.

Percentages aside, if you check the CIA World Factbook, you can clearly see that the U.S. spent $276 billion on their military in 2003 (The next highest spender was China, with $55.9 billion. Even if you add together China, France, Japan, Germany, the U.K., Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil's military expenditures, they don't equal the U.S. Pentagon's budget). This sounds to me like a nation gearing up for constant war, not a nation that wants peace and prosperity for all.

I understand the difference between small arms and 10 megaton warheads. All I was trying to point out was that for a nation so rich and powerful, America seems to be afraid of many people. A good way to stop being afraid is to stop arming other countries. Become an isolationist again if need be, but don't go around invading other nations preemptively just because of your fearful attitude.

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